The Story Prize went to a Canadian writer this year and the shortlist alone is worth a read

[Grim Socket]

André Alexis won the 2026 Story Prize, one of the largest first prize amounts for any annual US book award for fiction at 20,000 dollars, for his collection Other Worlds, his second short story collection after building a career mostly on his five novel Quincunx series

The other two finalists, Lydia Millet for Atavists and Ayşegül Savaş for Long Distance, each received 5,000 dollars as runners up, and both books are worth seeking out even without the top prize attached

Director Larry Dark and founder Julie Lindsey selected the three finalists from 114 short story collections published across 2025, representing 72 different publishers and imprints, which gives some sense of how competitive the shortlisting process actually is before a winner is even chosen

Alexis already has a Giller Prize and a Writers' Trust Fiction Prize on his shelf from Canada's literary award circuit, along with a Windham Campbell prize in fiction, so this is very much a continuation of an already decorated career rather than a surprise breakout

Past winners of The Story Prize include genuine heavyweights like George Saunders, Elizabeth Strout, Lauren Groff, and Edwidge Danticat, so Alexis is joining a genuinely serious list of short fiction writers with this win
The Story Prize